-- An amateur collective known as the Emeryville Shakespeare Company opens "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Unitarian Fellowship Hall in Berkeley. This company, co-founded by Peter Fisher and Mikel Clifford, will eventually evolve into the fully professional California Shakespeare Theater.

-- The company's primary performance space for the next 13 years is the amphitheater in Berkeley's John Hinkel Park.

-- Dakin Matthews begins a four-year stint as artistic director. After leaving the post, he became a frequent face on television, most notably on the series "The Gilmore Girls" and "Desperate Housewives." He is currently playing Mickey, a boxing trainer in the Broadway musical "Rocky."

1987

-- Michael Addison takes over as artistic director and remains for eight years. He resigned in 1995 to "seek new opportunities. I feel the company will be invigorated by a new artistic director," Addison told The Chronicle in 1995.

-- The California Shakespeare Festival, as it is now known, builds the 545-seat Lt. G.H. Bruns III Memorial Amphitheater in the Orinda Hills.

1995

-- Joe Vincent, a popular Cal Shakes actor for the previous four seasons, begins a four-year run as artistic director. He announced his resignation in 1998 and went on to play Prospero in "The Tempest" and Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice" in the 1999 season.

2000

-- Jonathan Moscone is appointed artistic director. He is now in his 15th season. "That's what I want for the festival," Moscone told The Chronicle in 1999 before taking his new post. "I want it to be engaged in the here and now. ... I want to expand the idea of what a classic is. American classics. I would love to do an American musical or adaptations of literature."

-- Tom Stoppard becomes the first living playwright produced at the Bruns Amphitheater.

2003

-- Goodbye to the festival, hello to the theater. Another new name introduced: California Shakespeare Theater.

-- With the new name comes a new initiative: New Works/New Communities, launching a partnership with Intersection for the Arts and Campo Santo to create "Hamlet: Blood in the Brain," an updated, Oakland-set version of "Hamlet" that would premiere in 2006.

2005

-- "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" (performed in two parts) becomes one of Cal Shakes' most ambitious and successful productions ever. Co-directed by Moscone and Sean Daniels, the entire show ran a combined six-plus hours and had a cast of 24. After 48 performances and three marathon double features, those actors logged nearly 4,287 hours onstage.

2006

-- Amy Freed of San Francisco is the first living local playwright produced at the Bruns with "Restoration Comedy."

2010

-- Cal Shakes' first world premiere, "John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven," is a literary adaptation by San Francisco playwright Octavio Solis and produced in collaboration with Word for Word.

-- The partnership with Intersection/Campo Santo officially becomes the Triangle Lab, an effort to engage audiences in the making of theater and to increase audience interaction.

-- After raising more than $8.7 million, Cal Shakes opens a significant renovation to the Bruns campus including the Sharon Simpson Center, providing a new cafe, bathrooms, gift shop, storage, and space for actors and house staff.

2014

-- Cal Shakes launches its first non-summer production in 30 years, an all-female "Twelfth Night," which toured juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, senior centers and libraries, and completed a short run at Intersection for the Arts. {sbox}